Metro 500, Inc. v. City of Brooklyn Park ( 1973 )

Rogosheske, Justice

(dissenting).

I would affirm. I cannot agree that the record compels a finding as a matter of law that essentially the sole basis for the council’s denial of the special-use permit was to arbitrarily prefer one commercial use over the other or, as stated in the majority opinion, that “there were already too many service stations in the area.” Findings of the trial court, amplified and analyzed in the comprehensive memorandum, make clear that the council did not act arbitrarily but based its denial on reasons not only articulated in its formal denial but supplemented by the testimony submitted to the trial court.

Summarized, the trial court found that the council’s denial was based upon its conclusions that an additional filling station in the area would adversely affect (1) adjoining property values, (2) existing and anticipated traffic hazards, and (3) the general purposes and intent of its zoning plan by perpetuating and increasing an imbalance of the use of lands zoned for commercial purposes in the area. Even though the council may not have formally articulated all of the reasons for its denial, our responsibility is to review the evidentiary support for the findings of the trial court. Where, as here, they are not clearly erroneous, we are obliged to affirm.

While it is surely desirable for the governing body in denying a special-use permit to record contemporaneously with its action all the reasons for such denial, we have never before suggested that the failure to do so amounted to more than a prima facie showing of arbitrariness. The majority opinion appears to now hold that where a governing body undertakes to contemporaneously and formally express reasons, but fails to include a legally sufficient reason, the action taken is arbitrary as a matter of law despite trial court findings that legally sufficient reasons for the action taken are established by the evidence. This, in my opinion, is too inflexible a rule as it represents an extension of Zylka v. City of Crystal, 283 Minn. 192, 167 N. W. 2d 45 (1969), and would restrict judicial review, both at trial and on appeal, to only those reasons formally articulated by the council contemporaneously with its action to issue or deny a special-use permit.

Mr. Justice Peterson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. Mr. Justice Yetka and Mr. Justice Scott, not having been members of this court at the time of the argument and submission, took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.